


On Purpose

by cerulean_irene



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: (except the soulmate thing), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 08:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21250265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerulean_irene/pseuds/cerulean_irene
Summary: But soulmates – especially romantic ones – were also complicated. And Alex’s life plan – Congress before 30, President before 50 – had little room for deviations, little room for messy.Romances between the children of heads of states are difficult. It turns out have confusing -- but definitely not romantic -- soulmarks just makes things harder. Alex and Henry try to make it work anyway.





	On Purpose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xslytherclawx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xslytherclawx/gifts).

> This turned out more introspective and less plot-based then what I was initially planning, but hope you like it! Unbetad, sorry for any grammatical errors/typos and please let me know about them so I can fix it!

Not every soulmate bond was romantic. In fact, according to Nora, only 38 percent of them were. That didn’t stop them from dominating fairytales and rom-coms and those gossip magazines that June loved so much. Alex did have to admit that there was something alluring about it – being fated to be with someone over everyone else. But soulmates – especially romantic ones – were also complicated. And Alex’s life plan – Congress before 30, President before 50 – had little room for deviations, little room for messy. So, he told himself he would likely be in the 62 percent of non-romantic soulmates. 62 percent were pretty solid odds, a supermajority, nothing to worry about. Right?

Romantic or not, it always went the same way: The moment you meet your soulmate, a mark appears somewhere on your skin, a symbol signifying your relationship with your soulmate. If you are lucky, it is somewhere visible, somewhere you notice it right away, cutting out the ambiguity of going over all your interactions in the past hours – or worse days. 

Nora is lucky. Her soulmark appears on her collarbone, visible to all the world with the low-cut shirts she liked to wear, the day she and Alex meet. It’s a White House and its meaning seems clear. In a way, she and Alex getting together feels as if it would have always been inevitable, but the soulmark definitely speeds up the process. The glee of Nora’s soulmark practically proclaiming that Ellen Claremont would win the election definitely helps on Alex’s end and they are making outing in a storage closet at a campaign event a few hours later despite the lack of a soulmark on Alex’s body. That was another thing – not all soulbonds were mutual. It never seems to bother Nora. “79 percent of one-sided soulbonds who enter romantic relationships with their bond stay in them,” she would say casually when Alex thought of the messy divorce between his parents and the mark his father bore, but not his mother. It turns out that Alex and Nora are part of the 21 percent as well, but that doesn’t seem to faze Nora either. And after a brief period of ignoring each other after their awkward break-up, when they fell easily back into friendship, Alex won’t have asked for it any other way. That’s the way things were with Nora. No dramatic, life-altering moments like there were on TV; just Nora slotting easily into his like she always belonged there. And thank god for it. The last thing America’s future youngest congressman needed was a complicated relationship with his soulmate.

Of course, there was also the matter that it is hard to have a complicated relationship with your soulmate when you don’t even know who they are. While Nora’s soulmate appeared in a visible spot on her collarbone with a symbol that pointed directly to Alex, not everyone’s mark was so clear. Alex’s mark is on the back of his thigh, hard for him to see without a mirror. It appears sometime during the Rio Olympics – at least he’s pretty sure it wasn’t before then – but he didn’t notice until his shorts rode up while June was walking behind him, causing her to gasp dramatically.

It is an outline in the shape of France, which endlessly intrigues June and Nora, but only serves to frustrate Alex. Nora, far from intimidated by the idea of her boyfriend meeting his soulmate, grills Alex about all his – markedly uninteresting – encounters with French citizens over the course of the Olympics and enters them into a spreadsheet entitled “My Potential Soulmate In-Laws.”

“I told you,” Alex huffs when she asks him about his encounter with a surprisingly dull French triathlete for the third time, “I haven’t met anyone interesting from France. It’s quite disappointing. I thought they were supposed to be a sexy people.”

“Am I not sexy enough for you?” Nora flirts jokingly, climbing onto Alex’s lap. June clears her throat then leaves balcony of their shared hotel room when Alex and Nora ignore her. Thoughts of soulmates leave Alex’s mind for the time being. 

The British royal family did not believe in soulmates. At least that was the official stance. In a world where loyalties and marriages were decided by politics and convenience, there was little room for the fickleness of soulmates. Of course, that was all disrupted when Princess Catherine shook off her guards and took off into the crowd during a production of Hamlet, then appeared the next day with a soulmark proudly displayed on her arm and a budding romance with an actor. But Queen Mary had made it very clear that such nonsense would not happen again, and Henry was not eager to be the defy that wish. 

So really nothing had changed – Henry told himself – when he had found his soulmark – an unfamiliar looking dock – on his upper thigh while he was getting undressed one night during the Rio Olympics. Unfortunately, his subconscious had other ideas. The first thing Henry thought of when we saw his soulmark was dark eyes and black curls, but no it couldn’t be, it wasn’t allowed to be. And even if Alex Claremont-Diaz was his soulmate … no best not to think like that. It does not help that he had spent much of the day in a depression-fueled haze; that meeting Alex, a very brief meeting, before he made Shaan send him away, was the only notable part of his day. But the crown did not believe in soulmates so neither would Henry.

It turns out not to matter because not matter what Henry tells himself, he falls for Alex Claremont-Diaz anyway. He doesn’t see the soulmark right away, it’s in an unusual place and he was distracted by… well everything else about Alex’s body. But in one of their hurried rendezvous he sees it, the outline France, and it confirms everything he already knew. That Alex was meant to love someone else (even if the rational part of his brain told him that the soulmark could be non-romantic). That he would fall in love with some beautiful French boy – or better yet, girl – someone would not tank his political ambitions, someone who would be with him.  
But then there’s the dock, the bloody dock at Alex’s father’s house. The dock that looks just like the one on Henry’s thigh. And then Alex is looking at Henry like he loves him, and oh no he’s going to say it. So, Henry does the only thing he can think to do and, after enjoying one final, perfect night, he runs. He runs because the only thing more terrifying than loving Alex is the idea that Alex could actually love him back.

What Alex had never liked about soulmates, especially romantic soulmates, was the lack of free will. The idea that someone was important to you because it was fated to be, not because you choose them. It wasn’t like that with Henry. He chooses Henry over and over again. With each trip, with each risk of exposure, even with loosing his job, he chooses Henry. And as much he hates it, the whole thing has turned him into a bit a romantic. Who cares if he and Henry aren’t soulmates? Alex, for one, likes it better that way.

Of course, that all changes when he sees the dock. Or really sees it again because it’s the dock at his own father’s house, in his own lake, where he had spent countless hours. And because was a stubborn idiot he refused to realize that it was the same dock on Henry’s thigh until they were floating in the lake together. To realize that they had been in Paris, France when everything had changed, when they spent the night together for the first time. That he and Henry were soulmates. That he was in love with the prince of England. And then it was too late. 

Or maybe it wasn’t. Because if there was one thing Alex was good at it was making reckless decisions. So, he chased is prince to the other side of the Atlantic. And when a couple months later Bea asks him a question about choosing Henry, about choosing to be with him even with all his baggage and all the difficulties it will bring. When she asks him if he’s sure that he’s not jumping into this just because they’re soulmates, he knows exactly what to say, exactly how he feels. “But the thing is, jumping off cliffs is kinda my thing. That’s the choice. I love him, with all that, because of all that. On purpose. He’s my soulmate, but I love him on purpose.”

**Author's Note:**

> This work had a Nora/June background subplot that I just couldn't get to fit in with the flow of fic. But I might make that into its own fic sometime in the future.


End file.
